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Read before the Section of Practice of Medicine of the American Medical Association at Washington, May 8, 1884. The object of this paper is to urge the necessity of having a reliable faradic battery ready to work, at a moment's notice, in every practitioner's office; and to exhibit here a new improvement, which promises the completion of this desideratum. The faradic current of electricity acts chiefly "mechanical." From reports of clinical cases, it seems that it has other qualities, which at present are not sufficiently defined, but unquestionably the principal action is "mechanical." It is a mistaken idea, which some entertain, that a faradic battery has some galvanic action, because one part of such a battery consists of one or two cells. The patient never gets an effect from these cells, as they act solely as a motor power to the induction coil; and never can give galvanism. The faradic